


Storms

by AdorableDoom



Series: Storms [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 23:39:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5763328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdorableDoom/pseuds/AdorableDoom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey was born during a storm. They named her after those first rays of light that came after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Storms

**Author's Note:**

> Major Spoilers for events in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Rey is born during a storm. The war is eleven years gone. The waves crash against the rocks and sky is alight with great flashes of lighting as thunder rocks the windows and the wind howls. She was born just as the sun was breaking over the horizon, squalling and purple. Wedge caught her and put her in his arms.  
She was small, so very small and furious. As the dawn broke, she unclenched her eyes and looked up at him. She blinked up at him with large, unfocused eyes and Luke can't help but wonder what she sees. They name her Rey after those first rays of light that came after the rain. 

He carries Rey in his arms as he oversees the construction of the new temple. There's no shortage of volunteers to watch her but he prefers to have her with him. She coos and laughs, one hand reaching out while the other clutches at his robes, wide eyes trying to take in everything and everyone. There is so much good in her, Luke can feel it already, so much light. He shifts her into the crook of his arm, smiling when she nestles closer to him.  
Luke rests his cheek atop her downy soft hair. The old Jedi Order had forbidden attachment. Never had he felt more pity for them than when he has his daughter in his arms. "I'll train you here someday," he promises, "you will be a Jedi too." I'll never leave you behind, he promises silently.  
Never would she have to wonder who her parents were. Never would she lie awake at night, tears streaming down her face as she wondered why they had left her behind. If they had loved her. She would never have to wonder or have any doubt about that. He gathered her a little closer then, smiling softly when Rey cooed happily seemingly in response. 

 

Rey shrieks with laughter as Wedge lifted her high above his head and spun her around. "Up! Up!" she laughs, waving her little arms like a bird. "Again?" Wedge laughs in return, seeming to lower her back onto the sand. "Up! Up!" "If you insist," he said, lifting her back into the air as she laughed happily.  
The temple is nearly complete. It will be finished within the month. The students will start arriving soon after. A new generation. The Jedi reborn.  
But for now, it was just them and their daughter. Eventually, Wedge sets her back onto the wet sand and sinks beside Luke on the hunk of driftwood where he had been watching them. As soon as her feet touched the ground, Rey was off and running to water's edge. She loved the sea. Loved the waves upon the shore and the clear blue water.  
"She's going to be one of hell a pilot someday," Wedge smiled. "A Jedi pilot," Luke added with a smile of his own. "Worked out well for you," Wedge points out, inclining his head at Rey who was happily sitting at the water's edge building a sand castle that looked remarkably like the temple just over the hill. Luke reached out, lacing his mechanical fingers with Wedge's. 

 

Ben is so much like his sister.  
And their father.  
At his worst.  
And his best.  
There is so much good in him. So much good. But there is so much darkness too. Rage. Rey loves him.  
He carries her on his shoulders down to the water's edge. They dig for shells in the sand and race down the temple steps. He does her hair in sloppy loops in an imitation of his mother. "There's so much Vader in him," Han says heavily. He's weary, afraid and so desperate to save his son.  
"Yes," he acknowledges because there is no denying it now, "but there's you and Leia too." In spite of himself, of everything, Han smiles. "Think that'll make a difference?" Ben and Rey are racing down the steps again, breathless with laughter. Ben is his best student.  
Sometimes, more often than he'd like to admit, that terrifies him.  
"It has to."

Rey was born during a storm. Five years later, she dies during another. Ben was his best student. His worst nightmare. The end of everything.  
Kylo Ren and his Knights come in the darkness. Luke looses her in the confusion, the chaos and violence that had descended on them. "It's not your fault," they tell him later. None of them will look him in the eye. It was over before it even began. The first time Luke's world ended, he stood, helpless and lost as the only home and family he'd ever known was consumed by flames. Thirty years later, it ends again in fire and death.  
Luke fails.  
His daughter.  
Wedge.  
His sister.  
Han.  
His nephew.  
His students.  
Everyone.

They survived so much, he and Wedge. War. Death. Pain. Suffering. The fall of the Empire. The rise of the Republic. They're not strong enough to survive this.  
When Wedge leaves, Luke doesn't stop him. "You're just going to let him go?" Lando says, no judgement in his voice, as the aged x-wing vanishes into the night sky. He never looked back. "He's the best pilot they have, they need him." It's the most Luke has said in days. There had been whispers, rumors of a new order trying to rise from the ashes of the Empire.  
Lando opens his mouth to say something but stops short. "He'll be back soon," he says instead, all false bravado and desperate hope. They both know it's a lie. Luke leaves not long after. He doesn't look back either.

 

Yoda and Obi-Wan taught him about rage, about fear and hate. Nothing prepares him for grief. It's suffocating, like being deep under water or buried beneath the ground. He's lost, directionless. A ship without a compass.  
He tries to let go, to loose himself to the Force. A poor attempt to find some semblance of peace. He thinks of Rey, her wide eyes and bright laughter, her small arms around his neck. He thinks of her riding atop Wedge's shoulders, arms spread like wings. He thinks of her racing Ben down the temple steps. He always used to let her win. Luke thinks of her and knows he will never know peace.

 

Maz Kanata told him once if you live long enough you see the same eyes in different people. The Falcon, Han's ship, the ship he'd thought lost forever, the ship he will never fly again, descends from the clouds the morning after a storm. Even from the depths of his grief, he'd felt the disturbance, an agony that reverberated through time and space. Another loss he'd been powerless to prevent, another in a long list of failures. Although he knows it's impossible, knows it will never be him again, Luke half expects to see Han making his way up the crumbling steps not unlike the ones where their children had once played before it all went wrong. When she ascends the last steps, he turns and finds himself speechless.  
With a shaking hand, afraid but oh so brave, she holds out a lightsaber, his lightsaber, his father's lightsaber. A silent plea. Help me, her eyes plead. There is still so much good in her, so much kindness, even after all she has suffered. Maz Kanata told him once if you live long enough you see the same eyes in different people.  
She has Wedge's eyes.  
For the last fourteen years, Luke has felt as if he'd lived far too long. An eternity passes before he gathers the courage to take a step forward and close the distance between them. He reaches out, not for the lightsaber but to gently cup her warm cheek in his flesh and blood hand to assure himself that this was real, that she was truly here. That somehow his daughter had returned to him. And then he spoke to her the same words Maz Kanata had spoke to him all those years ago.  
"You have your father's eyes."


End file.
